


Compliance

by JoJo



Category: The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: M/M, Older Lads (The Professionals)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23299201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/JoJo
Summary: Doyle enforces compliance, with Betty's help
Relationships: William Bodie/Ray Doyle
Comments: 5
Kudos: 34





	Compliance

**Author's Note:**

> this would kind of be the universe of Cats and Dogs
> 
> written for our covid-19 times

“Which part,” said Doyle, as patronisingly as he could manage, “are you having trouble with?”

He was stooped to keep one hand on Betty’s collar, although she seemed unimpressed at the prospect of escape.

Bodie halted where he was – at the end of the path there was sun, and air, and freedom, the faint rumble of a Tesco van two doors down. He swung around. His broad shoulders filled the space where the front door gaped open. Not pout and bluster, as Doyle had supposed, but granite-jawed, eyes dark in the shadowed hallway.

“I’m not having trouble with anything, thank you.”

“Right,” Doyle said who could enjoy a pent-up Bodie as much as the next man. Only preferably not right now. He let go Betty’s collar, tickled one silky ear, straightened to his full height. “It’s just that from here it seems like you are.”

They’d spent much of yesterday in separate parts of the house, doing their own thing. Doyle had dabbed paint with abandon, unusually abstract, Bodie had dismantled and cleaned a rusty chainsaw, terrifyingly precise. It had been fine, if tense, although all too easy to fall into silence. Doyle decided he should have seen this breakout coming. The last thing they needed to do was get aggy with each other. Although, perhaps even an argument about nothing was better than... well, nothing.

“No, no.” Bodie took a step backwards, made it over the threshold and on to the gravel. Betty decided to growl at him.

“Stay,” Doyle said, to both of them, but mostly Bodie. “You know the next part.”

“Home,” Bodie clipped out, irritated. “Yes, stay at home. I know. But this is exercise. This is allowed." He looked down at the dog. "It's allowed, Bets." Then he transferred the look back to Doyle. "We need... something, bound to. Coffee. Bread. Bananas.”

There was an expansive hand-wave.

Doyle passed over the bananas, which he saw as life-giving but Bodie generally treated more as comedy.

“We don’t need a single thing,” he said, the warmth of fear edging his voice. “But listen. We – you and me – have to stick in here, sunshine. My lungs, your ticker. Disaster areas. We need to batten down the hatches. Repel all boarders. Especially invisible little boarders who want to kill us.”

“You know,” Bodie said, shoulders slumping a notch, “At one time, we’d have been essential.”

Doyle tutted. He sidled past the stairs, signalling Betty not to move. Then he made a cautious approach just in case the silly arse was still seriously skittish. Bodie eyed him but didn’t retreat further down the path. Doyle emerged from the open front door, reached out to grasp a fistful of coat. He tugged, expecting resistance. For a man who’d spent his entire working life obeying orders, Bodie could be infuriatingly mutinous when he chose.

“Yeah, and at one time you’d have given your eye teeth for three months off,” Doyle told him.

Bodie reared away from the hold, looking down the road.Towards the Scarsdale.The quiet, closed, Scarsdale with the mauves and yellows of its newly-installed hanging baskets waving in the wind.

He didn’t speak, just seemed poised. As if about to bolt.

Being, obviously, more mutinous than both of them put together when he wanted, Doyle re-grasped the coat and this time yanked, to the sound of a surprised squawk.

Doyle somehow withstood the full weight of a Bodie bouncing off his chest. The click of Betty's claws announced she'd come to assist.

He huffed. “There’s no point fighting it. Or me. And in any case, you are essential, as you bloody well know. So just give it a rest, Sergeant, or I’ll have to call the compliance police.”

Nose to nose now, Bodie gave him a good long stare. A mixture of seriously annoyed and downright admiring.

His nostrils flared. The emotion could have been anger, or it could have been something else.

“Compliance police?” he repeated.

“It's not as much fun as it sounds.”

Bodie didn’t smile, although a spot at the left side of his mouth squinched, ever so faintly.

“Let me be the judge of that,” he said, and back-heeled the front door shut with so much strength that if there were any invisible boarders about Doyle didn’t fancy their chances one bit.

-ends-


End file.
